1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to information rendering. More specifically, aspects of the present invention relate to rendering electronic ink quickly.
2. Description of Related Art
Typical computer systems, especially computer systems using graphical user interface (GUI) systems, such as Microsoft WINDOWS, are optimized for accepting user input from one or more discrete input devices such as a keyboard for entering text, and a pointing device such as a mouse with one or more buttons for driving the user interface.
Some computing systems have expanded the input and interaction systems available to a user by allowing the use of a stylus to input information into the systems. The stylus may take the place of both the keyboard (for data entry) as well as the mouse (for control). Some computing systems receive handwritten electronic information or electronic ink and immediately attempt to convert the electronic ink into text. Other systems permit the electronic ink to remain in the handwritten form.
Electronic ink allows users to easily create and store handwritten notes. Handwritten notes may take a variety of forms including free form notes, maps, sketches, memorandums, to-do lists, and others. Some information relating to these notes may be displayed more often than other information. For instance, a tide of a document displayed in a title bar may always be shown despite the changing contents of document or resizing of a window displaying the document. Similarly, icons with ink titles or descriptions may also be shown on a desktop or in documents. When the desktop or document is redrawn, the ink title or description may take a while to redraw. This is because rendering digital ink is a slow process requiring significant processor power. As ink is becoming more popular, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to render ink quickly. Without the rendering speed of ink being increased, fewer developers would desire to use ink as readily as text. For instance, developers would be reluctant to use ink for filenames, ink titles for email messages, and the like if ink continued to be difficult to render.